Creative Lives: Laura Pannack, photographer

For this week’s Creative Lives podcast, we spoke to photographer Laura Pannack at her home in London. She tells us what a typical day looks like as a freelancer and reflects on her path into photography.

Laura’s work often captures intimate and candid moments, dealing with sensitive social themes, such as self esteem in adolescents, young love or lesser-documented groups of people, like young naturists. Her photographs have been exhibited at The National Portrait Gallery, The Houses of Parliament, Royal Festival Hall and internationally; and have attracted recognition from a long list of highly sought-after awards – including the World Press Photo Awards, The Sony World Photography Awards and The Royal Photographic Society award for notable achievement in a British photographer under 35.

For Laura, shooting is part of a continual process of overcoming challenges and developing, explaining that it won’t always be the most exciting projects that become the most rewarding. On top of ongoing personal work (shot almost entirely on film), commissions can range from editorial jobs for Time magazine, The Guardian and the Wall Street Journal, to commercial shoots for brands like Samsung, Dove, Barnardos and AXA.

Admitting that she still gets nervous before shooting, Laura discusses why bravery and acting on curiosity have been so beneficial to her path, and imparts her advice on staying “a little bit scared” when it comes to new projects.

Lecture in Progress is an online resource that inspires and informs the next generation of creatives by providing practical advice and day-to-day insight into the industry. This podcast series features creatives sharing what they do and how they got to where they are.

This episode of Creative Lives was was presented by Indi Davies and the producer was Ivor Manly. Lecture in Progress is made possible by the support of a number of brand patrons – they include GF Smith, Squarespace and The Paul Smith Foundation. Check out lectureinprogress.com for more details.